Putin’s Crucifix

Everywhere a man will be sure to meet at least once in his life something that is unlike anything he had happened to see before. – Nikolai Gogol

A photo of a bare-chested Vladimir Putin strolling along a rustic stream, fishing rod in hand was one of the more amazing images of the early 21st Century. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, but he was wearing a crucifix. Consider here that Russia’s first citizen was a former member of a godless Communist Party in the former Soviet Union; indeed, the station chief for the KGB in East Germany. At some point after Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin must have had a “road to Damascus” moment; a point where he cast off the conventional wisdom, the old ideology, and plotted a new course with a new moral compass. The cold warriors of Communism had been the enemies of all religions; but now, a president and prime minister becomes a defender of the Russian faith.

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